Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) declared Tuesday that the only experience President Joe Biden’s Health and Human Services (HHS) nominee, Xavier Becerra, has with “health care is that he sued the Little Sisters of the Poor” as a “trial lawyer.”
Cruz insisted Becerra is an example of an “extreme nominee,” noting “the Biden Administration likes to talk about their science based [politics], and their priority of stopping COVID [coronavirus].”
“Well, Becerra has no background in virology; he never worked at a pharmaceutical company, and his only health care experience is that he sued the Little Sisters of the Poor,” Cruz pointed out.
The Little Sisters of the Poor is a Catholic religious institute for women, which won in 2020 won a victory in a years-long battle to assert their First Amendment right to religious freedom against the contraceptive mandate in Obamacare, which Becerra fought to uphold.
Becerra also faced criticized from 11 Republican Senators for a “lack of healthcare experience,” in a letter they wrote to Biden:
We write to express our grave concerns regarding the nomination of California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to serve as the next Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). Mr. Becerra’s lack of healthcare experience, enthusiasm for replacing private health insurance with government-run Medicare-for-all, and embrace of radical policies on immigration, abortion, and religious liberty, render him unfit for any position of public trust, and especially for HHS Secretary.
The GOP senators specifically noted in the letter that Becerra lacks the experience in the healthcare field necessary to combat the coronavirus.
“Mr. Becerra’s lack of qualifications is particularly alarming given the important role the HHS Secretary will play in efforts to develop and distribute vaccines, coordinate research efforts, and draft critical regulations to carry out recovery legislation.”
They also emphasized Becerra’s advocacy for single-payer health care would eliminate 160 million Americans’ private health insurance:
This radical position is not a recent or passing fancy. As Mr. Becerra proudly told California Healthline in 2019, “I’ve been a single-payer advocate all my life.” As the coronavirus continues to wreak havoc on our nation, Mr. Becerra’s determination to strip Americans of their private health insurance isn’t just bad policy, it’s dangerous.
“We ask that you put our country over radical partisan objectives by withdrawing Mr. Becerra’s nomination for HHS Secretary,” the Republicans concluded in their letter to Biden.
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